On April 13th 2015 a 7 square kilometre territory, located between Croatia and Serbia, was named Free Republic of Liberland. It is expected to become a new micro-state, similar to Monaco or Liechtenstein.

The man behind the creation of this new state is 31-year-old Czech politician Vit Jedlicka, who wanted to build a country with unrestricted freedoms and with minimum State participation, relegated exclusively to diplomacy, security and legal affairs.

Jedlicka could achieve his dream when he found a territory in the centre of Europe that used to be part of the extinct Yugoslavia. After its separation, the territory wasn’t claimed by any of the new created nations.

Based on the terra nullius (no man’s land) principle, Jedlicka, his girlfriend and a former classmate carried the new Liberland’s flag and nailed it on the land on April 13th to commemorate Thomas Jefferson’s birth date. Jedlicka became President with the votes of his two companions, the first citizens of Liberland.

Like every other nation, Liberland has its own flag, its coat of arms, a motto (“To Live and Let Live”) and a Constitution that sets the official languages Czech and English, puts private property and individual rights above the State and establishes a voluntary tax system. Moreover, Liberland won’t have any oficial currency. Instead, it will accept any existing currencies, including digital currencies like bitcoin.

Right after Croatia blocked the transit of people to the new territory, Jedlicka started a tight diplomatic agenda along Europe and the United States, financed entirely by volunteers and enthusiasts of the project, to achieve the recognition of this new nation that follows the example of Singapore and Hong Kong.

In the technological era, the members of Liberland’s “government” and its thousands of volunteers around the globe have started a campaign to promote the new nation and have invited all those interested to register on the official website www.liberland.org to request citizenship. This has been made by more than 360 thousand people from all over the world so far.

The citizenship requests, according to Jedlicka, will be carefully analysed, to prevent the admission to people with criminal backgrounds, nazi or communist ideologies.

We’ll have to wait for the United Nations and the international community’s reaction to see if Liberland will be able to become the most liberal and open nation on Earth or it will be a disappointing utopia.

Images of flag, coat of arms and map all courtesy of https://liberland.org/